Released on Netflix at the end of last month, Encounters has quickly climbed its way up the streaming giant’s most watched list, becoming the latest non-fiction show viewers can’t stop talking about.
The docuseries details extraterrestrial – what’s the word – encounters over the last 50 years, and uses eyewitness accounts, interviews with experts and new evidence to uncover the world of what happens when life beyond the stars comes to live in your backyard.
And be warned; not all of them come in peace.
Here’s what you need to know...
What is Encounters actually about?
A non-fiction docuseries, Encounters takes a case-per-episode approach to claims and reports of extraterrestrial occurrences, here on Earth.
The incidents in the series range from reports of submersible spacecraft off the coast of a small Welsh fishing village, to an encounter in rural Zimbabwe witnessed by an entire class of children and their teacher in 1994.
Another episode moves to the States to focus on a strange set of lights in the Texan sky in 2008, and the final instalment follows a similar claim in Fukushima, 2011.
Each episode interviews eye-witness accounts and experts to try and get to the bottom of what happened from these ‘true’ stories.
Who appears in Encounters?
Because the series is a documentary, the cast doesn’t boast any of your favourite A-Listers. What it does boast, however, is a host of experts and fanatics dedicated to the incidents reported on.
Via Netflix’s TUDUM, here are the notable cast members:
- Dr. Kevin Knuth, astrophysicist and former NASA research scientist
- David Clarke, journalist
- Tony Cowan, former RAF officer
- Eric MacLeish, attorney
- Matthew Roberts, naval intelligence cryptologist
- Sara Vanden Berge, managing editor, Stephenville Empire-Tribune
- Lee Roy Gaitan, a constable in Erath County, Texas
- Robert Powell, nanotechnology engineer and co-founder of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies
Who made Encounters?
Encounters was directed by Yon Motksin, who has had a severe shakeup in the way he thinks about aliens since helming the doc.
“UFOs, UAPs, nonhuman intelligence, whatever we might call it… I didn’t before, but now I think it exists,” he told Netflix.
“It’s out there. People are just now starting to accept it as something that’s acceptable to talk about.”
The four-episode series was executive produced by the Steven Spielberg-owned Amblin Television, Emmy-winning Boardwalk Pictures and Vice Studios.
Where can I watch Encounters?
The four part series Encounters is out now on Netflix.
What are viewers saying about Encounters?
While critics and viewers seem fairly split on the docuseries, the documentary has generated a lot of chatter.
Decider wrote that the series is “a relatively dull docuseries that won’t persuade you to change your mind about the source of the unexplained phenomena featured in the series, no matter what you believe about them.”
Chicago Times reviewer Richard Roeper added that the programme “won’t sway any skeptics.”
Som viewers, however, had been far more favourable towards Encounters.
Are aliens real?
Maaaaaaybe. We’re not sure. Watch Encounters and make your own mind up.